Nowhere to be found
by cltaylor
Summary: Alternate POV. Summary: When you always live your life by the rules, it is hard to pick up the pieces when they are broken.


Warning: For Mild language. I let the "F" word go a couple of times.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything and don't claim to. Wish I had possession of Ranger… but I don't think you could really own a man like that. He likes to be in control.

A/N: This story has been bugging me in the back of my head for a few days now. Got done reading TS and have been working on WCA, but I couldn't get anywhere. So, Happy reading. It's just a quick story. Has nothing to do with TS. Spoilers up toHE, but none are really in here, mostly for just in case. Feel free to let me know what you think.This isn't your normal POV.

* * *

_He was gone._

I was sitting on the couch, an old worn out afghan sitting over my lap. I was holding our wedding album in my lap, staring at the picture of a smiling couple.

_It was all a sham. _

I felt the sob bubble in my throat and I choked it down. I couldn't lose it, not right now. I had two little girls to think about. I have two little girls who depended on me to make everything right in their world. I have two little girls that would live without their father for the rest of their life. I had to be strong. Being strong had never been my strong suit. I was more of the let everyone else fix it type of person. Not that I'd ever gotten to make a decision on my own. My whole life had been dictated of the wishes of others. I did what made everyone else around me giddy with happiness. I was to the point in my life, that I couldn't even hear my own voice. I had become a shadow in the background, watching everyone else live my life.

That would have to stop. I couldn't allow us to be walked over and disregarded. I couldn't let the girls forget. I wanted everything to be right in the world for them. I had to think fast. I had to make plans. I had to stop dwelling on what went wrong.

_He was gone, and he wasn't coming back._

I peeled the pictures out of the wedding album. I had a fire going in the fireplace although it was plenty warm outside. I didn't need the fire for warmth. I needed it to forget. I had been thinking the first week that he would come back. He would walk through the door and I could forgive him. No one would be none the wiser. The second week, I begun to fret that something that had happened to him, maybe he just couldn't get to the phone. I told myself that he was thinking about the girls and I, and he'd be home soon. By the end of the month, people were whispering and pointing at me. I was getting looks of pity and sympathy.

It has been over a month. The manila envelope was sitting on the coffee table in front of me. I was absentmindedly holding onto the picture with a death grip. My fingers were turning purple. One tear slipped down my face first, then one by one the rest fell. It was so hard to let go. There were a million reasons why this shouldn't be happening and a million for the reason why it did. I was naïve enough to think everything had been fine; everything had been perfect just like my life.

_They don't call you perfect and serene for just no reason, I told myself. _

My mind was screaming, riling against my better judgment. I had done everything according to the way I was brought up. I had never walked on the edge of the box, never deviated from my path in life. What have my little girls done to deserve this? Nothing, and that was what was so hard to choke down. He abandoned our little girls, for what? For a piece of ass? A little fun in the sun without pressure? I've had to start selling off every thing we owned so he could run off and play. I own nothing. I have nothing in this world but two little girls, and I was only living for them. I was afraid to call home. I was perfect in the eyes of my mother. This was all my fault. I hadn't done enough to keep him here with me.

The phone sat beside the envelope. Both were untouched. I hadn't moved from this spot in two days. I was afraid to face this world alone. I didn't want to be alone. I wanted a knight in shining armor to ride in on his white horse and rescue me, and take me off into the sunset. I suppressed a hysterical hiccup of laughter. Life doesn't have happily ever after, or fairy tales with fairy Godmothers to make everything right in your world. I was living proof of that. What I thought was happily ever after, turned into my husband running off with the fucking overpaid babysitter.

I was looking at the picture through tear-laden eyes.

"I _hate_ you for what you have done. Do you hear me? I will never forgive you for what you have done to those girls." I whispered to the picture. I stood up and took the pictures over to the fireplace and dropped them in. The picture of us smiling like the young idiots we were on our wedding day was on the top of the pile. The faces were the last image to shrivel up from the fire.

I stared at the fire, zoning out into my thoughts. I turned when I heard the door creak open. I was met with a mirror of my own image when I was my oldest daughter's age. She was a perfectionist, always minding her manners; always more mature then other kids her age. And I could see in her eyes that she knew what was going on.

_That broke my heart. _

"Mama." She said moving closer to me. "I put Mary Alice to bed. I read her a book and tucked her in."

I gave Angie a brave smile and waved her to my side. I hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head.

"You're a good girl, Angie. I love you and Mary Alice very much. You don't have anything to worry about." My voice was shaky, and thick with strained emotion.

Angie hugged me a little bit tighter.

"Mama. Don't be afraid. Everything is going to be okay. You'll see."

I held my breath, too afraid that I would sob onto my oldest daughter's shoulder. If only I could be so sure. I rubbed her back reassuringly.

"I know, baby."

We stood there staring into the fireplace for the longest time.

"Why did he go, mama?" Angie asked quietly. "Doesn't he love us anymore?"

My lower lip trembled. This was my biggest fear for the girls. I didn't want them to think that they did something to make their father go away. I took a hard swallow, pushing the tears back down. I knelt down so I could be eye level with Angie. I brushed a few strands of her blond hair away from her face.

"Your daddy loves you both very much, Angie. You and Mary Alice did nothing wrong. Sometimes…" I didn't know what else to say to her. The truth was a painful pill to swallow for an adult. A child didn't need to know the truth.

Angie was searching my eyes.

"You don't have to lie to me, Mama. I watched Daddy with the babysitter. I know what he did." Her pretty little face was pursed with anger, "I don't ever want to see him again." She whispered to me fiercely.

I took her little hands in mine. If I were being stabbed in the heart with a dull, rusty butter knife, it wouldn't have hurt worse than this. To hear Angie say that she saw Steve with the babysitter was the worst kind of pain known to mankind.

"Baby," I said softly to Angie. She was too young to understand hate. I was incredibly sad that she would have to learn about life this way. "Grown-ups are just like old kids. Sometimes we mess up pretty bad. And sometimes a sorry doesn't fix everything."

"I hate him." Angie sobbed to me, "I hate him, Mama."

I gathered her to me. Angie put her head on my shoulder and I rocked her back and forth. I cried too. I cried for her. I cried for Mary Alice. I cried for the injustice against them. All I want for them is to be healthy and happy. Steve was a bastard of the first kind.

"Baby, it's alright." I whispered to her. "Nothing bad is going to happen to us."

Angie wrapped her arms around my neck and held on like she never wanted to let go.

"I'm going to help you, Mama." Angie told me with all seriousness. She was sniffling, wiping away her tears. "I'm a big girl now."

I smiled despite crying. My girls would be women before long. I didn't want their lives to be like mine. I wanted them to learn to be like Stephanie. I wanted them to learn to be independent. I wanted them to learn to make their own decision and damn anyone who told them differently.

"I know you are, baby. I know you are." I told Angie. She leaned away from me and gave me a brilliant childlike smile. She laid a hand on my cheek and Eskimo kissed me.

"I love you, Mama. You are the best Mama in the world."

I was all choked up. I loved my girls. I would do anything for them. I would gladly give up anything to keep them like this forever.

"I love you too, Angie." I kissed her cheek.

Angie turned and walked silently out of the room, leaving me alone in front of the fire. I brought my hand up to my mouth and suppressed a sob. There was only one thing for me to do. It was time to bite the bullet.

I reached for the phone. I dialed the phone number that had been the same for thirty-two years.

She answered on the second ring.

"Mama. It's me." I paused for a heartbeat. I could hear her suck in a breath. "I'm coming home."

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End file.
